Still More on Afghan Deadlines

Parroting the party line - having learned the lesson of McChrystal - Admiral Mullen says that President Obama's deadline for withdrawal from Afghanistan is a realistic one. Given the lack of candor among senior staff these days, we'll never know what he really thinks until it's too late.

The top U.S. military officer says critics who claim it will take years to even have a chance to defeat the Afghan insurgency ignore the fact that a similar counterinsurgency strategy turned around a similarly difficult situation in Iraq in 2007. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, spoke to reporters traveling with him to South and Central Asia Thursday.

Admiral Mullen acknowledges that it may take years to fully defeat the Afghan insurgency. But he says that is not what the United States expects to accomplish by this time next year, when President Barack Obama has said he will begin to withdraw U.S. troops. But Mullen says the year-and-a-half the president allowed for the new strategy to prove itself is adequate.

'Insurgencies last a long time,' said Mullen. 'But, as you look at how long it took to turn Iraq around, it was about 18 months. Now, we're about two-and-a-half years later, and we're still working in Iraq. But it was sort of that period of time where it really turned. Turning it doesn't end it, [but] you've got to turn it to get it moving in the right direction.'

I suppose this is all based on the assumption that Iraq actually turned around, as opposed to a temporary power vacuum that the Iranians are currently trying to fill.

By: Brant